t of sight under the bushes, seldom
taking wing, but depending on their sturdy little legs to take them
out of harm's way. A cotton-tail, disturbed in his hiding, darts away,
bounding from side to side like a rubber ball, as if expecting a shot
to overtake him before he can get safely to cover He need not fear, as
we have no more deadly weapon than a camera, though we should
certainly train that upon him if he but gave us a chance. High
overhead we hear the clarion honk, honk of wild geese, cleaving the
air in drag-shaped column, while the dew on the grass dances and
sparkles in the sunshine like glittering diamonds.

After a hard climb we reach the top of the hill, and look down at the
town just awakening into life, and out across the waters of the bay
partly hidden by the blanket of fog rolling in from the ocean.

Did you ever stand on the top of a high hill in the early morning,
when the eastern sky is beginning to put on its morning robe of
variegated colors, with all the blended shades of an artist's palette,
and watch the town, nestling in the valley at your feet, wake up after
its night of slumber? Here a chimney sends its spiral of blue smoke
straight in air; then another, and another, like the smoke of Indian
scouts signaling to their tribes. The lights in the windows go out,
one by one; the sharp blast of a whistle cuts the air, the clang of a
bell peals out, the rumble of a wagon is heard, and the street cars
begin their clatter and clang. All this comes floating up to you on
the still morning air, until an ever-increasing crescendo of sounds is
borne in upon you, telling that the town has awakened from its nap,
stretched itself like a drowsy giant, and is ready once more to
grapple with its various problems.

We pass a grove of tall eucalyptus trees on our left, their rugged
trunks like an army of tattered, unkempt giants. From the brink of the
old stone quarry, we gaze down into its prisonlike depths, the
perpendicular walls looking as if they had been carved out of solid
rock to hold some primeval malefactor; then we descend the hill on the
other side to the canon.

[Illustration: THE BOTTOM OF THE CANON]

The view on every side is magnificent. Rising out of the canon, on the
farther side, the rounded domes of the hills, clothed in velvet green,
roll from one to another like huge waves of the ocean, while far to
the right old Grizzly stands majestically above the others, its top
crowned with waving v